Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Gareth Pugh: Melissa's list of collaborators reads like a roll call for a fashion hall of fame. Now, it adds the world's best-known fashion designer to its impressive archive of high-fashion tie-ups - Karl Lagerfeld.

Fans of the Brazilian brand of plastic shoes can slip into four designs by the king of collaborations which are out in stores now.

The German designer for Fendi and Chanel has worked on a line of wristwatches with Fossil, beauty products for Shu Uemura, and is set to unveil an eyewear range with Fiat scion Lapo Elkann. And that's just within the past year. Not that ubiquity has dimmed the allure of the Lagerfeld brand name. Indeed, the pony-tailed septuagenarian has inked a partnership with Melissa for four capsule collections.

This season, he has customised two existing styles - the Glam pointy-toed ballerina flat, and the Incense pump, and debuted new Mary-Jane and platform designs to the range.

And Melissa's creative director Edson Matsuo is the man to thank for such headline- making projects with design heavyweights.

Responsible also for the label's research and development department, the Brazilian-born art professional of Japanese descent reveals the role of such designer collections and what it was like working with the Kaiser:

Melissa is so well-known for its collaborations. Could you describe the process of working with high-fashion partners?

Every collaboration is a unique moment. Therefore, each one of them is a new challenge. Karl Lagerfeld's drawings are an inspiration for making new plastic shoes. Vivienne Westwood always wanted to make plastic shoes but never had the opportunity, and Jason Wu showed us a delicate way to shape plastic.

What is it like working with Karl Lagerfeld?

The main peculiarity of Karl Lagerfeld is that his drawing expresses, in a profound way, the soul of the project, and this makes it easier for us to "translate" his designs into products. Our main challenge is to guarantee a faithful result of what is created in this collaborative process.

Was it always a deliberate move for Melissa to launch so many tie-ups?

Our first collaboration was with (Parisian designer) Elisabeth de Senneville at the beginning of the 1980s, and the design was recently relaunched at the Melissa Memories Collection. Yes, it was always our goal to work on high profile tie-ups as they are a way of helping us to think outside the box, especially with those who have never designed a shoe before.

What is the role of collaborative collections for the business?

I can say that in the 1980s the first collaborations with Elisabeth de Senneville, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler and (French ready-to-wear brand) Dorothee Bis had marketing appeal because there wasn't a design division in the company at the time.

At the end of the 1980s, I created the design division and that was when we started to launch co-creation projects with the focus on design.

What percentage of sales comes from collaborations?

Approximately 30 per cent.

What are the biggest advantages and challenges of using plastic for shoes?

The biggest advantage is to work with a material where our imagination is the limit, and the challenge is to dream of a new shoe that is unique. The injection process is very simple. For example, we have many projects, one of them is the Melissa UltraGirl where we've shaped it to feel like the wearer's second skin.

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